Nur Ein III Round Seven "Man of the Hour"

[Caravan Ray]

I haven't heard any songs since the "Unnatural Disaster" round -too slow to listen on dial-up - will try to belatedly catch up once I get broadband connected again

[roymond]

Wholly crap! I've been catching up the last three days. The final was fabulous and I have to say Ross has risen very high in my eyes lately. Paco brought the best weird. Love that! Ken pushes in all directions with grunge pop sarcasm.

But Brain Trust is one amazing EP because all these songs are great. Congrats WSA, which seems to bring together Yes, Tull and Nine Inch Nails. Somehow. In a wonderfully fulfilling main course meal. Thanks to all Nur Ein-ers for all the music!

[Thanks For The Frisbee]

Thank you NIv, judges, peers, Nur Einers and all who listened to Nur Ein! i loved this experience!

special thanks to the band Mel, Pete and Glennny! these guys are amazing talents. im with pete here when i say that i definately could not have made it very far on my own..if even through to round one. so thanks guys, you are the best.

Congrates to the other finalist Ross, Paco and Ken, you all pump out consistantly great tracks and it was a blast being in the final four with you guys!

thanks again for this awesome experience!!!

[adamadamant]

Congrats WSA, you deserved it. I went to a gig last night (the ethereal rap folksters Why?) and came out humming your Man Of The Hour, brilliant!

[ken]

Good game all, good game.

Congrats to WSA.

Ken

[furrypedro]

Congrats WSA, you deserved it. I went to a gig last night (the ethereal rap folksters Why?) and came out humming your Man Of The Hour, brilliant!

Argh, you bastard. I wanted to go to that gig so badly but it sold out. The worst part of it is that when he toured in 2005 me and my friends were literally the only people who'd gone to see them. I'd be interested to know how it was over (highlights and such) in the gig thread if you can be bothered.

I went to play some frisbee yesterday afternoon and afterwards gave my friends an acoustic rendition of our Man of the Hour. It was cool.

[GlennCase]

Congratulations, WSA! You won with a good song.

It's gotta suck for Ken though. All is fair in love and Nur Ein, but there was absolutely no advantage to winning round 6 because of the three way tie for second place. Under normal circumstances he would have been guaranteed a spot in the final two, but instead he finished with fourth place again. That much has got to suck, no matter how respectable fourth out of twenty five might be.

ROCK!

Glenn Case

[rone rivendale]

I'm not one to say I told you so....

[john m]

Not committing myself to anything, but how does one go about signing up for this thing whenever it comes up next? I've never noticed signups any of the other times.

[jb]

All is fair in love and Nur Ein, but there was absolutely no advantage to winning round 6 because of the three way tie for second place.

I agree with Glenn. I've been a bit out of it due to being on vacation, but I am nevertheless going to retroactively nitpick the judges' decision. There should have been a runoff for second place in round 6.

It wasn't fair to Ken at all, from the standpoint of How the Competition Works, especially considering his margin of victory in round 6. Since it is a competition, it should be fair, and if one wins a round one should be awarded the advantage commensurate with that victory. In the later rounds that advantage is fewer competitors to beat down.

The last round should be heads up competition, not just a do-over of the penultimate round. Ken is too nice a guy to be pissed off over this, so I'll be it for him. I am mildly aggravated by this turn of events.

JB

[Niveous]

Ah, the controversy.

Should there have been a run-off of some sort at the end of Round 6? Well, the jury pondered that. And the question came up- has there ever been a tie like this before in the Nur Ein? The answer is Yes. There was a tie in Nur Ein I. Glenn won the 6th round. Leaf and Calfborg tied for second and we let them both advance. It just happened that Glenn beat them again and thus it raised no eyebrows. This time around Ken (who happened to be the 4th band in that Nur Ein I sixth round) won and the other competitors tied. We had a precedent and followed it. And even if we would've had a run off, it wouldn't have mattered. In the final round, Ken came in last. In other words, we wouldn't have won one on one against any of the other 3 competitors.

With following the precedent and the voting falling the way it did, I don't think there's any need for controversy. Everyone did fine and that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I love the Nur Ein drama.

[jb]

And even if we would've had a run off, it wouldn't have mattered. In the final round, Ken came in last. In other words, we wouldn't have won one on one against any of the other 3 competitors.

Yeah, but is it better to have come in 4th or 2nd out of those 25 competitors? I think 2nd. At least, if it were me I'd have rather come in second than 4th.

And who's to say whether the dynamic between the two remaining songs would have resulted in the same swing of votes? I don't think you can predict that.

Even though Glenn beat the odds last time, it wasn't fair then either. Besides, ask any suffragette if precedent is a reason to continue an unfair practice.

Anyway, it's over and I ain't gonna fight about it no more. But I don't think you won this argument, Niv, at least not in MY mind. >:-(

JB

[Caravan Ray]

And even if we would've had a run off, it wouldn't have mattered. In the final round, Ken came in last. In other words, we wouldn't have won one on one against any of the other 3 competitors.

Yeah, but is it better to have come in 4th or 2nd out of those 25 competitors? I think 2nd. At least, if it were me I'd have rather come in second than 4th.

Doesn't matter if you are 2nd or 25th. If you're not 1st - you are a loser.

But in the wash up at the end of the day, we're all winners. After the fat lady has sung and the crowds have gone home, we all know we played hard and done good. We leaped with the highs and learnt from the lows. We were sparkling in attack and punishing in defense, and though emerging bloodied and bruised from the traditional softening up period, went on tough and uncompromising, with courage, determination and a heart as big as Phar Lap to take it one song at a time and let the music do the work. We took a good hard look at ourselves and gave it a red hot go. We punched above our weight, took everything that was dished up to us and gave as good as we got. This was champagne songfighting, at a level of quality so incredulous I can barely believe it. But now, it is time to let what happened at Nur Ein, stay at Nur Ein and hit the sheds for a hot, soapy tub and a couple of cold ones. Mark my words - Nur Ein was the real winner here, and too much songfighting is barely enough ....over to you HG

[Adam!]

With following the precedent and the voting falling the way it did, I don't think there's any need for controversy.

ask any suffragette if precedent is a reason to continue an unfair practice.

It is clear that Nur Ein needs a better way of dealing with ties. However, experience shows that changing the rules mid Nur-Ein--especially after the songs have been posted--does not go over well. I am confident that we made the best decision. Now that Nur Ein III is over we can look to improving the rules.

Also, I would like to commend you on your wisely chosen counterexample. I can think of two more obvious examples, but one is squarely in Godwin territory, and the other an embarrassing faux-pas.

Yeah, but is it better to have come in 4th or 2nd out of those 25 competitors? I think 2nd.

That's a good point, I hadn't really thought of it that way.

[erik]

In the final round, Ken came in last. In other words, we wouldn't have won one on one against any of the other 3 competitors.

While this is very intuitive, it's also wrong. Here's a simplified example, with 4 bands called A, B, C, D and 5 judges.

Judge1
4-A
3-B
2-C
1-D

Judge2
4-B
3-C
2-D
1-A

Judge3
4-C
3-D
2-A
1-B

Judge4
4-A
3-C
2-B
1-D

Judge5
4-C
3-B
2-D
1-A

A gets 12 points. B gets 13 points. C gets 16 points. D gets 9 points. D is in 4th place. But look again: 3 judges (Judge2, Judge3, Judge5) thought D was better than A, and only 2 judges (Judge1 and Judge4) thought A was better than D. When comparing only D's song to A's song, more people thought D's song was better, even though D got less total points than A.

[ujnhunter]

my brain hurts...

[Spud]

A gets 12 points. B gets 13 points. C gets 16 points. D gets 9 points. D is in 4th place. But look again: 3 judges (Judge2, Judge3, Judge5) thought D was better than A, and only 2 judges (Judge1 and Judge4) thought A was better than D. When comparing only D's song to A's song, more people thought D's song was better, even though D got less total points than A.

This is an interesting byproduct of the Nur Ein voting system. It happened to us the week we went out, as well. Still, we knew the rules going in and were happy to play.

SPUD

[erik]

A gets 12 points. B gets 13 points. C gets 16 points. D gets 9 points. D is in 4th place. But look again: 3 judges (Judge2, Judge3, Judge5) thought D was better than A, and only 2 judges (Judge1 and Judge4) thought A was better than D. When comparing only D's song to A's song, more people thought D's song was better, even though D got less total points than A.

This is an interesting byproduct of the Nur Ein voting system. It happened to us the week we went out, as well. Still, we knew the rules going in and were happy to play.

SPUD

I'm not complaining about the scoring system. The presently scoring system is a perfectly acceptable scoring system.

My point is this: it's incorrect to say that the person who got 4th place when judges had to rank 4 choices couldn't have won in a head-to-head comparison between him and any of the other 3 contestants. To say "It wouldn't have mattered anyways because Ken got 4th place" is bad math.

[rone rivendale]

I did call this. ^_^

[Spud]

I'm not one to say I told you so....

[jimtyrrell]

Sorry I missed out on the final voting. Congrats to the WSA for a fine job throughout the entire competition.

I'm not going to weigh in on the current debate, but I will say that I think there's a few things that could be better arranged before the next Nur Ein. If there's a preseason meeting next time around, I'd love to attend. (Actually, I'm still interested in being a judge next time too.)